Archive for the “Misc” Category

For those wondering what I have been up to Fathom has been moored in Cangas since last Monday which is much longer than I originally intended. Firstly the weather last week was very unsettled so took shelter in the marina and enjoyed spending time in the town and watching some euro football games. Unfortunately I then picked up a sickness bug resulting in the last few days being a write off. Now starting to feel much better and hope to visit Isles Cies later this week which i’m looking forward to. This morning I had an email from Peter, another participant in the Jester Challenge, who after 29 days at sea has abandoned his attempt to get to the Azores. He plans to arrive in Cangas tomorrow so look forward to hearing his tales over a beer (yes I am confident my stomach can now handle one beer). Sorry for lack of updates recently more to come very soon!

I’m settling in well and life is relaxed onboard Fathom. I have just about finished my birthday cake a week early. I tried my best to hold off for a few more days but couldn’t resist. Looking forward to getting stuck in to Heather’s fruit and brandy cake afterwards.

Conditions have been light since the start on Sunday with full sail up just about all the time. Only had the need to put a reef in once and this was shaken out after a couple of hours. Yesterday morning the anemometer was reading 0.1 knots for around 20 mins. Requires a lot of patience to keep the boat moving in the light stuff. The fleet appears to be in two main bunches the first heading out west past the Scilly’s and the second bunch a more southerly route towards Ushant. I chose to make use of the NW breeze and head more south. Those of us within range have been chatting on the vhf which has been good.

Several seem to have been unlucky with fishing boats at night and have not had much sleep. Roy on ‘Spirit of Venus’ hurt his neck and has decided to pull into Penzance to get it seen to. 15 to 20 minute cat naps are keeping me fairly refreshed and hopefully once I am further offshore I’ll be able to sleep for a little longer with less traffic around. The AIS and radar watchman alarms give me warning when any shipping gets close but it has taken some time to put my faith in these and relax enough to sleep for a few minutes with the boat sailing herself. I’ve decided to make the most of a south west breeze to get some westing in today. Conditions are due to liven up this evening with around 25 knots and I’ll probably tack then and head south. Spag boll on the menu for dinner (with parmesan of course).